


rules as follows

by andnowforyaya



Category: B.A.P, K-pop
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Blood, Brutality, Consensual Violence, Fight Club - Freeform, Gen, M/M, No Snitch Culture, Non-Consensual Violence, Past Child Abuse, Power Dynamics, Violence, implied-banghim, pre-daejae - Freeform, seriously though this is pretty violent, so much cursing, violence as sexual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-30
Updated: 2014-04-30
Packaged: 2018-01-21 10:32:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1547480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andnowforyaya/pseuds/andnowforyaya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Boys will be boys,” his dad said, and two years later he was gone.</p><p>It was a shitty thing to say then and it’s a shitty thing to say, now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	rules as follows

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah...so [@upboxx](https://twitter.com/upboxx) was like, wow ufc fighting au would be so hot. And I saw that and thought, yes. It would be. 
> 
> And then my brain did something else and I wrote this in one sort of hazy sitting and now here we are, and here it is, and it's not very nice.

There are three rules as follows:

1\. No shots to the groin. Just. Don’t be a dick.  
2\. Respect the end of a fight. Don’t retaliate. Don’t be a dick.  
3\. No squealing. Don’t be a dick.

That’s it.

.

Fights are on Wednesday nights. Locations change up.

This is what Yongguk says:

> When you are here, you are not a student. You are not studying to pass some test. You are not killing yourself for an exam. You are here. You have already passed. You _exist_.

> But you are a sad sack of meat looking for purpose. Fuck your teachers. Fuck the school. They beat you down. Your family beat you down. Life beats you down. Well, get up.

> Your purpose here is simple. It’s carnal. It’s _instinct._  
> 

> The fight is king. There is something you know about it, in your gut. There is something you know about putting your fist in someone’s face. There is something you know about drawing blood. No one had to _teach_ you that. You are born knowing the fight.

> But we aren’t animals. We learn control, too. We aren’t here to kill each other.

> We’re here to get back a little of what’s ours. We’re here to serve our purpose, to give each other purpose.

> The fight is king, and _you_ are king, and _I_ am king.

Break for cheering.

Yongguk pulls off his school jacket and throws it to the ground. “Who’s first?” he simmers.

“This is bullshit,” Daehyun mutters out of the corner of his mouth, as the circle of boys tightens and starts to shove, calling out names. They’ll push someone into the middle, some new blood.

Himchan hears him. “And yet,” he says with a smile as sharp as a knife, “here you are.”

.

In his first fight with the Club that Daehyun is ever in, the other kid goes down with a wild punch to the temple, quick and sure, unexpected, Daehyun’s fist like a bullet. The kid rolls around on the concrete ground in the park, groaning, as the circle of school boys quiets, stunned, the heavy hand-crank flashlight flickering as Himchan slows in turning the handle.

The sun has set and they have to be ready to shut the whole operation down at a moment’s notice, if anyone comes by or calls them in.

“Shit,” someone whispers, as Daehyun cracks his knuckles and shakes out his fist.

Daehyun walks over to the other kid, who is still moaning, and nudges him with his foot to splay him out onto his back. The crowd widens around him, anticipating.

But he just reaches out a hand and helps him up.

Circles do not have a point, a beginning nor an end, but still there seems to be a certain energy around the Club’s founder, Yongguk, one year Daehyun’s elder. The boys look to him, seeking guidance.

Should the fight end so quickly? Shouldn’t Daehyun keep going? Weren’t they gathered here to pummel the crap out of each other and hold no grudges, the next day?

So Daehyun looks to Yongguk, too. He doesn’t think he should keep going. This other kid looks dazed, still, and like maybe he’s about to vomit. He’s probably never been hit before in his life.

Yongguk smiles at him, wide and gummy, showing all his teeth.

Yongguk says, in a low growl of a voice, “Next.”

.

It’s not always so clean, of course. Some Wednesday nights, Daehyun will stumble, head buzzing, to Youngjae’s family’s little apartment, and hiss at his window until his friend slides it open, frowning.

He doesn’t know why Youngjae’s frowning. Daehyun always has to climb a friggin’ mountain to get to his place. It’s fucking dedication, okay.

“What do you want, you piece of shit?” Youngjae will say, his face pale-silver-smooth in the piss-yellow lights reaching him from the street.

“Let me in,” Daehyun will say.

Youngjae grumbles, but he always lets him in, and they will drag their tired bodies silently to Youngjae’s room, where he will sit Daehyun on his bed and make him show him where he’s bleeding.

Youngjae has gotten pretty good at fixing him up. Daehyun likes Youngjae’s hands on him, gentle and soothing, sometimes stinging with antiseptic. It reminds him of when he used to run away from home in the middle of the night, and Youngjae would put bandages on his cuts and bruises, because Daehyun’s dad was an asshole.

“Let me stay,” Daehyun will say.

Youngjae grumbles, but he always lets him stay.

.

“What is happening to you guys?” their teacher says from the front of the room, eyes wide and appalled. He is a round, large man, probably muscular in his youth, but now just big. Big belly, big arms, big voice. Mr. Son. His face is red as he gapes.

Daehyun takes in the scene as Mr. Son would take it in. A sea of boys in front of him dotted with islands of bruised faces and split lips. Band aids over knuckles and cheeks. There’s a drop of blood on the collar of Daehyun’s school shirt that he couldn’t get out last night, and the area around his left eye is swollen.

Next to him, Youngjae shakes his head and ducks to continue writing, finishing up homework, finishing up some of Daehyun’s.

“Seriously,” Mr. Son says, gritting his teeth in an attempt to keep his voice down. “It can’t all be your parents, right? Who’s beating you up like this?”

Silence.

In the front, one boy squirms in his seat, and Mr. Son rounds on him, striding to his desk, slapping his ruler against the flat surface, noise like a whip crack.

Half of the class flinches.

Daehyun snorts, but when Mr. Son looks up, he can’t find the culprit.

“Protecting your bullies, huh?” Mr. Son says, tugging at the collar of his shirt.

Sweat trickles down the back of the boy in the front’s neck. Daehyun pictures it dripping, dripping under his collar, down his spine, pooling at the dip in the muscle.

No one says anything. No one wants to be a rat. No one wants to squeal on Yongguk, most of all.

“The school is looking into this,” Mr. Son insists. “We want it to stop. We want you to be safe, here.”

Daehyun bites into his bottom lip to keep from snorting again. It opens up the cut he suffered there, and blood seeps into his mouth, between his teeth. It tastes like metal.

Safety has nothing to do with it.

.

Yongguk fights like a fucking legend. He always fights, every time there is a circle. He is swift vengeance and smooth destruction. Skin breaks under sharp knuckles.

The boy he’s fighting is tall, and young, probably a freshman.

The circle is spreading. Himchan is now not the only one with a light. Now as many boys bring flashlights as possible to light the one or two hours in Club, ready to flick them off at a snap of a finger.

The circle is an amoeba, widening and narrowing around the two fighters in the ring, striking out with soft jelly arms when one of the fighters stumbles too far to the side, pushing them back into the center.

This guy, this freshman, fights like he is scared, and that won’t do.

Yongguk snarls when he throws a low punch, quick and sure, and the kid winces, and it catches him in the gut. He doubles over, gasping, lowering his guard, and Yongguk drives another punch down his cheekbone, and the kid bangs into the cement on all fours.

Today they are behind a restaurant in its parking lot, long after hours, lights inside the building off.

Yongguk grunts, aiming for a swift kick into the kid’s side, but then Himchan flickers his flashlight a few times and says, low and authoritative, “Yongguk. Stop.”

Yongguk lowers his leg, breathing hard, sweat rolling down his neck. He stoops down to pick the kid up from under his arms, standing him on unsteady feet and brushing off his shoulders for him. “Fight’s over, Junhong,” he says. “How do you feel?”

It’s crazy, but Junhong smiles. They always smile. There’s a rush, a flood of adrenaline and endorphins that blocks out the pain and makes your brain think you’re happy, you’re elated, and that Yongguk delivered you to this. Junhong’s nose is bleeding and he’s going to have raccoon eyes for the better part of a week, but he’s smiling, teeth tinted red, and he says, “ _Strong_.”

Yongguk smiles, too. He’s not as marked up - just a cut at his cheek that’s already stopped bleeding from Junhong’s nails catching him unprepared. “Good,” he says. “Remember this feeling.”

He pushes Junhong back into the circle, and scans the Club for new faces.

“Next pair,” he says, smile charming, voice calming.

Daehyun cracks his knuckles, and steps forward.

.

Once, when he was younger, Daehyun’s older brother put a hurt on him so bad their father had to intervene, pull him off Daehyun, and after their mother spanked his brother’s ass with the back of a wooden spoon until he was crying and sniveling, their parents sent his hyung upstairs to hide his face into his pillow until he stopped.

“Honey,” his dad said, addressing his mother, who was pacing around the kitchen, anger and disappointment radiating from her small figure. His dad was examining Daehyun’s eye with a grim expression and smoothing his thumb lightly over the puffy skin underneath it.

Daehyun hissed, but did not cry. He was done crying.

“Boys will be boys,” his dad said, and two years later he was gone.

It was a shitty thing to say then and it’s a shitty thing to say, now.

He overhears one of the teachers talking to the principal in their office from where he and Himchan and this other kid are kneeling, arms raised above their heads in the usual show of penance. It’s been a few minutes.

Mr. Son had tried to address his class about the bruises showing up on their bodies, and again no one said anything. Then, he’d picked a kid at random to go down to the principal’s office, maybe hoping to break them in isolation.

Well, he shouldn’t have picked Daehyun.

And they shouldn’t have picked Himchan, either. It looks like there’s a boy almost from each classroom, lined up in this hallway, imitating each other’s poses of deference.

Daehyun puts his arms down. The teachers have been inside discussing for ages, and blood rushes back into his limbs, making them tingle. Beside him, Himchan puts his down, too, sighing.

“Are you worried?” Daehyun whispers at him.

Himchan turns his head sharply, eyes narrowed. “That someone will snitch?”

Daehyun nods, and Himchan scans the other boys in the hall, none of whom have put their arms down with them.

“No,” Himchan says confidently, smirking a little. “It’s against the rules.”

“I thought the whole point was to fuck the rules,” Daehyun says.

Himchan scans him, too. He says, “Not _our_ rules.”

“Then whose?” Daehyun nags, because he’s got purple around his right eye and a twist in his ankle and he wants to know what Himchan thinks of this whole Club thing, suddenly. The background operator. The puppeteer to Yongguk’s shadow king.

“Everyone else’s,” Himchan says. “Everyone wants to get off. We’re just doing it right.”

“Everyone wants to get off,” Daehyun repeats. “You’re just doing it with Yongguk.”

Himchan’s body is tight and coiled and ready to lunge, but he doesn’t. He throws Daehyun a warning glance, nostrils flaring, as the handle of the office door turns, and they both raise their arms again.

“Did I hear talking out here?” Mr. Son asks, looking across the hallway at the boys’ faces, eyes beady.

Silence.

.

It doesn’t surprise the others anymore, when Daehyun steps into the circle, cracking his knuckles, and brings down older classmates, bigger boys. He may be small but he’s scrappy, and quick, knows how to look for open spots and aim for them, hard and strong.

Today, though, there’s a new boy. He’s got a different sort of build than the others - muscular but light, made of sharp angles. He holds his hands up, and when he settles into position, Daehyun smiles at him.

“You box?” Daehyun asks him, holding his hands up, too.

“A little,” the other kid says.

“I’m Daehyun,” he says.

“Jongup.”

Today they are in an old park in its abandoned football field, the grass mostly dead and overgrown in patches. Daehyun is light on the balls of his feet, and circles him, pleased when Jongup reciprocates as he expects him to, always facing him. The amoeba of boys shifts, and an arm pushes Jongup forward, forcing their distance closer, and then it begins.

A hard right cross to the side of his face later, and Daehyun realizes that Jongup is a good fighter; it’s clear that he’s done more than _a little_ boxing, but that’s okay. Daehyun can stomach the lie as well as he can stomach the fist Jongup jams into his ribs, shortening his breath but bringing the other kid nearly nose to nose with him.

Daehyun can take a hit. He’s been taking hits all his stupid life.

He hooks an arm over Jongup’s neck and draws him in, and retaliates with his own uppercut into Jongup’s solar plexus, then a hook into his side, and then another uppercut, lower. It doubles Jongup over and he rams his knee into the underside of Jongup’s chin, and the kid yelps, blood filling up his mouth and spilling out from his lips. He’s bitten his tongue, hard.

“Okay,” Jongup gurgles, holding up both of his hands, as blood drips down his chin.

Daehyun watches it flow, breathing through his teeth. “Okay,” he says, holding out his hand.

They shake and pat each other on the back, and the boys around them push someone else into the circle.

Daehyun limps out. He must have twisted his ankle again without noticing. Unknowingly, he’s limped out to stand next to Yongguk, and Yongguk regards him with an eagle’s eye, his gaze intense.

“You’re good,” Yongguk says, nodding.

Daehyun shrugs.

“Doesn’t it feel good? To know that?” Yongguk continues. “You’re so angry. You probably could have really messed him up.”

“But I’m not going to,” Daehyun tells him. “We’re not animals.”

Yongguk frowns. Suddenly Daehyun feels sick, like he’s eaten too much or maybe not enough, and his stomach roils. When the next fight is over he leaves, uncaring about the way Yongguk’s eyes follow his back, and makes the slow trek to Youngjae’s apartment.

.

Youngjae puts smelly squeeze-tube medicine onto his split knuckles with a q-tip, tsking. “Why the fuck do you do this every week? If you want someone to punch you in the face every once in a while, I’ll do it.”

There’s a wrinkle at the corner of his lips that Daehyun watches from his seat on Youngjae’s bed. It forms and smooths, forms and smooths, as Youngjae works. He wraps Daehyun’s knuckles with gauze and tape.

“I don’t know,” Daehyun admits. “It’s kind of - a release. I guess. Plus, I’m good at it.”

“You’re good at other things,” Youngjae says, but doesn’t list these other things.

Daehyun lets Youngjae unbutton his school shirt and remove it from his shoulders, careful, because his own fingers are stiff. He puts Daehyun in one of his old shirts from a volunteer trip he’d taken last summer.

“Let’s just go to sleep,” Daehyun says, scooting back onto the bed. His ankle is tender.

“It’s almost like you want your Dad to come back, or something,” Youngjae says.

Daehyun rolls onto his side, away from Youngjae, to hide the way he’s scowling, the way those few words stung more than Jongup’s knuckles bursting blood vessels across Daehyun’s cheek. “That’s pretty fucked up, Youngjae,” he says.

“Yeah,” Youngjae says. “It is.”

.

Fights are on Wednesday nights. Locations change up.

Yongguk says:

> When you are here, you are not a student. When you are here, you are a fighter. You exist for the fight. You _live_ for it.

> You know how it feels - It feels like flying. It feels like sex. Except - except what do you know about sex, you sad fucks.

> I’ll tell you something. I’ll tell you something - this is better than sex.

> This is first blood. This is all the fighting back you have ever wanted to do. This is release, climax, orgasm. You black out because it was so good.

> Who wants to black out first?

Break for cheering.

Yongguk pulls off his school jacket and throws it to the ground. He rips off his shirt. The amoeba of boys shouts and jeers and he soaks it all up, glowing in the energy, reveling in it, purely hedonistic. “Who’s first?” he beckons again.

“He’s different,” Daehyun mutters to Himchan, who is standing next to him, flashlight in hand.

“Don’t worry about it,” Himchan says, the grip on his flashlight tight.

.

The gym is silent. The principal’s voice echoes in the large, open space, his students facing him on the rows and rows of wooden bleachers, a wall of impassive faces.

“I am saddened by what I see in front of me,” the principal says. “Bright young students with so much greatness ahead of them, but you don’t seem to care. Look at what you are doing to yourselves. What do you think - do you deserve this? Do the people you are protecting, do they deserve to do this to you? You’re ruining your futures.”

Silence.

It’s not about futures, Daehyun thinks. It’s about the empty promises they are shoving down their throats.

“We will not be so lenient anymore. We have a strictly no tolerance policy - for bullying, for fighting. Consequences will be swift.”

The principal is grasping at straws.

Daehyun looks at Yongguk, who is sitting at the top, near the right corner. He’s smiling. Himchan is sitting next to him, and he’s not.

He watches the way Yongguk’s shoulders roll back, the pleased grin tucked into his lips, when no one breathes a word.

.

The next fight night buzzes with apprehension and electricity. The principal’s threat looms over them.

Yongguk fights first. He almost always fights first, but tonight there’s an eagerness to him, a high, that leaves even Himchan wide-eyed and chewing on his lips.

Junhong steps out. Sweet, young Junhong, who has improved so much since that first time, but still he is no match for the vigor and speed that Yongguk brings with him. And tonight there is something extra, something vicious.

“Shit!” Junhong cries, hands flying to his nose from where he is bent over double, prepared to stop, raising his watery eyes as blood seeps out from under his hands and drips like a fountain to the concrete. It splatters. The boys jeer, cheer, shout for first blood.

Yongguk charges forward and catches him with a hook, grazing his cheek, snapping Junhong’s head to the side.

“Stop,” Himchan says, flickering his light. “Yongguk, stop.”

Yongguk reaches and pulls Junhong up by the collar of his shirt with both hands, draws back his fist, and--

“Stop!” Himchan shouts, louder than he’s ever had to call him, and Yongguk freezes, fist raised, Junhong’s nose pouring out blood and his head rolling back.

Yongguk lets go, and Junhong stumbles before standing on unsure feet.

“We good?” Yongguk mumbles.

Junhong nods, breathing hard.

After, when they are clearing, Daehyun taps Himchan on the shoulder and nods to Yongguk, who is shaking hands with the boys leaving.

“You need to talk to him,” Daehyun says.

“I’ll do it,” Himchan mumbles, voice tight.

Daehyun lingers in wait as Himchan draws Yongguk to the side with a light touch on his elbow, leaning into his ear to whisper, and then he follows them, closes in on them. A range of expressions crosses Yongguk’s face - anger and surprise and disbelief and anger again, and then he looks right at Daehyun, glaring.

Himchan takes hold of Yongguk’s chin and directs his gaze back to his own, shoulders high up and tense, shaking his head.

“What you did to Junhong wasn’t okay,” Daehyun says, because he doesn’t trust Himchan to say it in so many words.

“He won’t say anything,” Yongguk growls.

“That’s not the point,” Daehyun fires back. If he were a dog, he’d snap his jaw. That’s what he feels like sometimes, anyway. An animal.

“He’s right,” Himchan interjects, physically standing between them and forcing them apart with his hands. “You went a little too far.”

“Whatever,” Yongguk bristles, turning away. He shakes himself out, and Himchan follows him, shooting Daehyun a look he can’t read.

.

It’s raining the next fight night. Yongguk beams a wild smile at the crowd that has gathered, and ushers them into the school’s gym. Somehow he found a way to break in.

The gym is a dark, cavernous space, and their footfalls and voices echo as they begin, and it feels -

Foreign. Intimate. Dangerous.

A final _fuck you_ to the school. There will be blood.

Daehyun looks around at the shadowed faces of the boys gathered. There will be a lot of blood.

Looking around, he sees a face he isn’t expecting to see a short distance to his left, skin pale-silver-smooth and unflawed, unmarred.

Youngjae.

He reaches out, draws him near. Youngjae looks at him, startled, mouth open, as the boys around them begin to sway. There’s something happening in the middle. Yongguk has called for Club to commence, like a pastor might call a church into prayer.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Daehyun demands, hands on Youngjae’s shoulders, fingers digging in.

Youngjae winces. He’s soft, too soft.

“I wanted to see what the rage was all about. But it’s just a bunch of dudes beating the shit out of each other, isn’t it? What the fuck’s the point?”

“You should leave,” Daehyun tells him, but he doesn’t want to let go, either - doesn’t want to let Youngjae be pulled into the amoeba, the formless, mindless mass. It’s stupid, but Daehyun is stupid. Youngjae shouldn’t be here.

“Let’s get out of here, Daehyun,” Youngjae says, but it’s too late.

Yongguk spots him, a fresh face, as the previous boy he was fighting slithers back into the crowd. He points and the sea parts for him, and his smile is sinuous. “You,” he says, gesturing at Youngjae.

“He’s not fighting,” Daehyun says for him, hands still on Youngjae’s shoulders. Without a thought he steps in front of him, and Youngjae moves as Daehyun shields him.

“This isn’t a fucking spectator sport,” Yongguk says, smile dropping. “Everybody fights.”

“He’s _not_ fighting,” Daehyun says again, firm, defiant, and he sees Yongguk for what he really is.

“THIS IS NOT A SPECTATOR SPORT,” Yongguk shouts, voice bellowing, the veins in his neck prominent.

Blood races through Daehyun’s body, sharp and poisonous. He hisses, “I’ll fight for him, then. I’ll do it,” and steps forward.

Yongguk doesn’t give him any time to prepare before he’s launched himself at him, the boys in front of Daehyun diving out of the way as Yongguk swings.

Daehyun barely blocks with his forearm in time. The force of the wild punch makes the bones of his arm shake into his shoulder, and he grits his teeth. A flurry of hits follows, in rapid succession, as Daehyun brings his hands up to guard, falling back, Yongguk catching him once in the cheek and multiple times in the meat of his right arm, until it feels deadened by the blows.

The circle breaks.

Daehyun surges forward when Yongguk must pause, catching his breath, and hooks him in the gut, and the ribs, under his chin, making his head snap back. He follows him down, but Yongguk returns, angrier, spitting red.

They volley back and forth, the circle widening, following them, but never fully forming again.

Yongguk swings, and this time when he connects, he breaks through Daehyun’s block and his fist is like a hammer against Daehyun’s temple, and his head knocks back, vision blanking for a millisecond, but that is enough. He’s up against the bleachers now, his back almost pressed to the ridged wood. Yongguk hits him again, and his head smashes against it, hard.

“Stop,” someone says, from very far away.

Yongguk doesn’t stop.

He lands a vicious uppercut right underneath Daehyun’s ribs, and Daehyun heaves, doubling over, no time to regain breath before Yongguk does it again, and again. “You - like - this - move,” Yongguk says in time to his attacks. “I’ve noticed.”

“Stop,” Daehyun chokes out, gulping in air. The back of his throat tastes like blood. He can’t breathe. Pain blossoms and tingles and stabs, its epicenter at his ribs, and he tries to wrap his arms around Yongguk, to squeeze him close enough that he can’t use his fists anymore.

Yongguk struggles, but Daehyun is weak, weakened. He pulls himself out of the hold and draws back and uses his knee instead, holding Daehyun by his shoulders to force him down.

Daehyun coughs, and spits out blood.

“You think you can stop me,” Yongguk grunts, manic. “You think you can turn _Himchan_ against me?”

“Stop!” someone says again, louder, voice rasping. Yongguk props Daehyun up against the bleachers and slices his knuckles across his face, and Daehyun just wants to fall, to bleed out on the gym floor, but Yongguk won’t let him. He hits him again, and Daehyun sees black.

“Yongguk,” someone is saying, or shouting; Daehyun can’t tell anymore. Everything is ringing in his ears. “Yongguk, for fuck’s sake. _Get off him._ ”

A sharp smacking sound followed by a muffled curse, and then blessed relief.

Yongguk lets him go, and Daehyun collapses, like a bundle of twigs, onto the floor.

“ _Himchan_ ,” Yongguk is saying. “Himchan, what did you think you were doing?”

“Fight’s _over_ , Yongguk,” Himchan says, voice like gravel. “You were going to keep going until you killed him.”

“I had it under control,” Yongguk protests.

There are fingers in Daehyun’s hair. He groans into them, seeking comfort. His body is made of pain and broken things. He feels like a puppet without its strings, and blood leaks out of him, and he is simultaneously grounded and weightless, in limbo.

“You should have seen yourself,” Himchan says. “You didn’t have it under control. You’ve gone too far.”

Daehyun can’t tell if there’s disgust in the voice, can’t tell much of anything.

There are fingers in his hair. He likes them. “Youngjae,” he whispers, sputtering.

“Yeah,” Youngjae says.

“Can I stay over again?”

“Yeah,” Youngjae exhales, raw. “Of course, but I think. I think we’re going to have to make a pit stop, first.”

.

Club dissolves.

Daehyun returns to school and finds it peacefully boring, aside from the stares he gets and the dropped jaws. Youngjae sits next to him and lets him copy down his notes, and helps him finish his homework.

Yongguk does not return to school.

After classes, there’s a fight on the way back home, near the stores. A ring of boys surrounding two in the middle, chanting.

Daehyun cranes his head to look, but Youngjae does not stop.

“What?” he asks Daehyun. “You want to join them?”

“I think I’m good for a while,” Daehyun says.

He follows Youngjae back to his place. There, Youngjae raps his knuckles over Daehyun’s head when he’s being stupid, which is the majority of the time, or he shoves at him when he’s taking up too much space on the couch or on the bed. There is no jeering and there are no speeches, no cries for first blood.

There’s just Youngjae’s fingers in his hair, at his neck, on his cheek, which is what he’s always wanted, anyway.

.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry.
> 
>  
> 
> [writing](http://andnowforyaya.tumblr.com/)   
>  [twitter](https://twitter.com/andnowforyaya)


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